Rail-chair



J. B. TARR. Rail-Chair.

No. 227,456. Patented May II, 1880.

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UNTTED STATES PATENT FEIQE.

JOHN B. TARR, OF FAIRHAVEN, MASSACHUSETTS.

RAIL-CHAIR.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 227,456, dated May 11, 1880.

Application filed October 17, 1879.

all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, JOHN BLAKE TARR, of Fairhaven, in the county of Bristol and State of Massachusetts, have invented a new and useful Improvement in Railroad-Chairs and Fastening-Wedges thereof; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full, clear, and exact description of thesame, reference being had to the accompanying drawings, forming part of this specification, in which- Figure 1 is a top view of a railroad-chair with two pieces of rails resting upon and fastened in the same. Fig. 2 is a vertical transverse section of Fig. l in the line as a; of said figure. Fig. 3 is a similar section in the line y y of Fig. 1. Fig. 4 is a plan of the wedge.

My invention relates to an improvement in the construction of a well-known castiron railroad-chair and the fastening-wedge thereof; and the object of my improvements is to overcome the fatal objection to the said chairs-viz., the liability of their breaking when the fastening-wedges are driven home for the purpose of tightening the rails at their junctions with one another in the chairs, and when strained or jarred suddenly by the passage of rolling-stock over the rails, and when subjected to the effects of unequal expansion or contraction of the different metals adjoining one another.

The nature of my invention consists in a novel manner of constructing the chair in three parts, the base or major part of cast-iron, and with strong shouldered abutments, through which strong wrought-metal rivets can be passed. and the upper portions or lips, which hold down the rails, of wrought metal, and with passages in them for the passage through them of the strong wrought-metal rivets which fasten them and the base portion firmly to gether, said lips resting in the shouldered portions of the cast-metal base portion of the chair, and being sustained against upward strain by the rivets and the abutments formed by the shoulders of the base portion of the chair. I In the accompanying drawings, A represents the well-known form of railroad-chair, which heretofore had its base portion a and lip portions 11 I) cast together and in one piece, and with the transverse wedge-slot 0 cast therein. The wedge B of this chair was also generally of cast metal, and with key-pin holes in its thin end.

Such chairs, as heretofore made, were found very desirable on account of their convenience and great saving in expense in laying down and keeping in repair railroad-tracks; but their adoption had to be discontinued from the fact that the lipped portions 1) b were constantly being snapped off by the act of driving home the wedges and by the sudden jars and strains brought to bear against them by the weight or motion of the rolling-stock and by unequal expansion and contraction of the adjoining metals.

To overcome this'objection I have cast only the baseportion a of the chair and made the lip portions 1) b of wrought metal, and provided shouldered seats 0 in the top of the base portion for the lip portions to rest in, the

shoulders f of the seats serving as abutments to sustain the lips when an upward strain comes against them too great for the fasteningrivets g to bear. The lipped portions, as well as the portions of the base a, upon which they rest, are perforated in a downward direction from top to bottom surfaces of the chair, and strong rivets g g are passed through the same and riveted, as shown in the drawings.

The rails U are inserted endwise into the chair through a passage at right angles to the passage through which the fastening-wedge B is passed, and the upper surfaces of the base flanges or feet of the rail fit snugly against the under beveled sides of the lip-pieces b b, and the lower surface of the rails rests upon the top of the wedge B, as usual, or as represented in the drawings.

The wedge is of wrought metal and formed with three tongues, h h h, by splitting its end longitudinally of the wedge, as shown.

When the wedge is driven home and the two ends of the rails firmly fasten ed upon the chair thereby, the tongues h are bent downward against the chair, as illustrated in Fig. 3 of the drawings, and thereby the wedge is kept from becoming unseated or shifted from its keying position.

In the use of thetongued wedge it is found that it serves a very useful purpose for keepin g the wedge always seated in its keying pometal base portion at, having seats 0 and shouldersf, and of the wrought-metal lip portions 12 b and rivets g, uniting parts a and 6, substantially in the manner and for the purpose described.

JOHN B. TARR.

Witnesses:

J. P. TH. LANG, G. H. THEO. LANG. 

